


Wrapped in Plastic

by Pluppelina



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Choking, Gen, Implied Relationships, Jim is a mad bastard, Sebastian has daddy issues, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 08:18:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1598021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pluppelina/pseuds/Pluppelina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What really makes Sebastian uncomfortable is when Jim shows him true and honest interest, when Jim turns his x-ray eyes on him and picks him apart, determines what makes him tick and how to poke just so to get him out of balance. What really makes Sebastian angry is when Jim actually succeeds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrapped in Plastic

In the three months they’ve lived together, Sebastian has decided that it’s not the humiliation that’s the worst of working under Jim Moriarty. It isn’t the kneeling at Jim’s side or acting a table for his scorchingly hot cups of tea. That’s all desensitivity training, and that, Sebastian’s well used to. He knows how to grit his teeth and keep doing what he’s supposed to do without letting it get to him, all the while forcing the walls around his psyche to grow higher and stronger and more impenetrable. That’s just the way Jim likes them, and the way Sebastian’s used to having them, anyway. The worst part isn’t the pains and aches either, not the cuts or the scrapes or the bruises, not even the degrading ‘rewards’ he gets for tasks well done. 

What really makes Sebastian uncomfortable is when Jim actually shows him true and honest interest. The only time he ever thinks about leaving is when the burning of Jim’s intense eyes is on him, making him want to just escape the whole goddamn thing. It seems to him as though Jim always chooses to strike when Sebastian finally thinks he can feel safe around him. He’s never understood why Jim chooses those precise moments, the times when all is relatively calm and they could actually have a nice, quiet moment together. It’s the quiet moments that are the important ones, Sebastian’s found. You can share however many laughs and drinks with a man, but it isn’t until you’ve shared so many silences you can actually rely on one another.

It’s silent now. Jim is laid out on the sofa with his laptop on his stomach, filling the room with the occasional sound of fingers on keys and frustrated sighs. Fuck knows what he’s writing, and fuck cares. Sebastian certainly doesn’t care, sitting cross-legged on the floor barely two feet away, paying special care to his guns rather than full attention to his boss. It’s relaxing in a way, working on different tasks in relative peace, only interrupted by Sebastian reaching out for the occasional sip from his beer bottle. It’s as close to a lazy Sunday afternoon as they get and it ought to be pleasant, really. 

It isn’t pleasant, though. The fact slowly creeps up on Sebastian as Jim types less and restlessly taps his fingers against his thigh more; the boss is starting to grow bored. It’s only a matter of time before he’s going to try to find something else to entertain him, and that never ends well. There isn’t much in the room besides Sebastian to lash onto, so he tries to make himself smaller, less visible, by keeping his head down and focusing on the way the cloth caresses the metal in his hands. It works moderately well right up until he feels Jim’s eyes on the of his neck. He feels caught. 

At that point, there’s no blocking Jim out, and there’s no discouraging him either. Sebastian holds out for another couple of minutes, ignoring the man as well as he can. It’s something he’s going to have to learn, living with Jim, because losing focus at the wrong moment might well cost him everything. Unfortunately, dedicating so much of his mental process towards keeping up appearances turns out to be counter-productive. As he reaches for the next gun part, a bottle tips and he almost spills oil all over his jeans. Annoyed, Sebastian finally relents. There’s only one way out of this, unless he wants to tuck tail and run, and he really doesn’t want that. Turning to meet Jim’s eye, he snaps, “What?” 

The unpleasant tone of it doesn’t seem to come across at all, seeing how Jim only keeps smiling his little smile and cocks his head to the side, saying, “You’re rather good at that, darling. Who taught you?”

As always, Jim has a way of touching a nerve, and Sebastian clenches his jaw. He knows it’s a give-away, knows it’s going to let Jim know that he’s done it again, but he can’t help it. It’s a topic that never fails to make him tense. He knows he has to reply, though, so he does, turning his eyes back to his gun. 

“My father.” 

Jim’s response is almost immediate and so perfectly casual that it has to be rehearsed. It’s moments like these that give Sebastian the feeling that Jim spends his sleepless nights planning out their conversations and practicing them in his head until he finally gets to perform them, just to see if he can guess Sebastian’s lines correctly. Just to see if he can get the expected rise.

“Well, he certainly got you well trained,” Jim says, with a tone of voice he might’ve used to comment the state of his own fingernails. Sebastian tries his very best not to give Jim any outward reaction, does his best to simply blink. During that wink of an eye short time he has his eyes shut, it all plays out in his mind 

_when he was nine and couldn’t shower after PE because the bruises would show, when he was twelve and got his arm broken over stolen whiskey, when he was sixteen and thought the damage to his ribs would be permanent_

but when he opens them again, his face is blank, passive. He levels Jim with a look and says “Suppose” as though this wasn’t making his stomach turn. Even so, there’s no way to blot out the emotion in his eyes and Jim jumps on it like a kitten on a mouse. 

“Oh, isn’t that sweet,” he says, shifting on the sofa so his feet touch the floor and his laptop rests on his thighs, “how very touchy you are.” Jim reaches out for Sebastian’s head, probably to pat him on it in that condescending manner he has. Only, he doesn’t make it that far before Sebastian’s grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm so forcefully he all but falls out of his seat, computer crashing to the floor next to him. A yelp escapes his boss as Sebastian spits “Don’t fucking touch me” at him and he’s seventeen again, seventeen and it’s the one and only time he hit his father rather than take a beating.

He realises what he’s done and he steps back, every bit the boy trembling in his boots and the man breaking a sweat. He’s seventeen and his father just gives him a smile before he turns to leave but he’s in his thirties and his boss is swearing under his breath. He’s the teenager who got a car for his eighteenth birthday and he’s the full-grown adult who has to live with the lesson that the only way to gain approval is to fight the fuck back. Suddenly, there isn’t enough air in the room for him to breath. 

“Don’t touch me,” he growls once more, feeling exerted and tense and stuck inside his own useless body. Jim, slowly climbing back onto the sofa, surprisingly isn't glaring at him. Instead, there's a dangerous glint in his eye, and, coming fully back into the now with a start, Sebastian is once more the man who's been dismissed from every position he's ever held on account of authority issues. He knows what happens when one is dismissed from the service of Jim Moriarty, knows that if Jim has decided Sebastian went too far--and Sebastian did go too far--he'll be dead before the night is out. 

The urge to reach for the disassembled gun on the table is knee-jerk. He knows that he could put it together and pull the trigger before Jim even got his phone out to call for help. Loyal or not, Sebastian’s still alive largely because he’s always looked out for himself first and those he owe second. He's barely managed to twitch in the right direction before Jim reacts, though, and it isn't the reaction Sebastian expected. Rather, it's an amused little smirk and a soft comment that could mean so much more than the sum of its words - "Aren't you a lot of fun when you’re angry?" 

Sebastian freezes up, the most peculiar of feelings snaking up his spine. Jim isn’t angry. Sebastian has seen Jim angry, never directed at him, thankfully, and this isn’t it. This is more like a kitten playing with its toys than a lion downing its prey, and Sebastian’s glad he didn’t actually have the time to try and do anything stupid. Jim wouldn’t have been so casual about this then, he’s sure. As is, he gives Jim a hard look. “Fuck off.” 

It only makes Jim sit up straighter, laptop forgotten at his feet. “No, really,” he says softly, “I mean it.” Sebastian’s just about to turn and walk out of the situation, leave his fucked-up boss with his fucked-up ideas, when Jim somehow goes and casually adds the only thing that could make things even worse; “I’d let you have me, you know.” 

Sebastian falters. How the fuck is he supposed to react to that? What about the thing that just happened, about Jim taunting him and him hitting back, was it that made Jim think Sebastian would be interested in sex? He can’t even begin to formulate the question in his mind before Jim’s somehow already read it on his face and gives the reply, added in a sultry voice as he looks up from the sofa with a smirk. “I’d let you own me, the way you could never own him.” 

Sebastian’s fingers twitch, and the next thing he’s aware of is that he’s got both hands wrapped around his boss’s throat, that he’s screaming at him, “What the fuck do you think that’s supposed to mean, you little shit!”. Jim is laughing at him, a terrible wheezing sound he makes through his tightened trachea, and Sebastian doesn’t know what’s gotten into him but whatever it is, he can’t stop it. He pulls his boss down from the sofa and onto the floor and he squeezes down until the laughing stops and it’s just him, him and the silence, the terrible silence. His knuckles are turning white, Jim’s still smiling and everything’s still and empty for another moment before Sebastian finally snaps out of it. This isn’t the kind of silence he wants them to share. 

There’s nothing elegant about what comes after, about the way Sebastian steps back and shakes his fingers out because they hurt, nor about the way Jim tries to catch his breath on the floor, coughing and making noises even worse than those he’d made before. He’s alive, though. It’s probably going to bruise, and he’s probably going to have Sebastian’s balls for it, but at least the boss is alive. It might be something small to be grateful for, but Sebastian throws himself on it as though it were a life saver. In a way, it might just be. 

This time, he doesn’t stick around to wait for a reaction. It might be a cowardly move to run back into his bedroom, and he knows it, but what else can he do? He’s fucked up beyond all imagination, but if he stays behind, he might fuck it up even worse. As things stand now, Jim might still forgive him. If not, well, at least Sebastian’s bought himself some time to think. _Think, goddamn it._ He slams the door behind himself as he passes it by, then goes back to lock it as an afterthought. Feeling trapped, he walks another circle over the free space between his bed and his dresser. What’s he supposed to do, climb down the drain pipe like when he was a bloody child? 

And just like that, he is a child again. Just like that he’s fourteen, hiding under the bed so father won’t see. He’s fifteen and he’s just been kissed but he can’t tell because father would bruise him up so bad he could never enjoy kissing again. He’s sixteen and he sinks down on the bed, slowly, because even breathing hurts. He’s seventeen and he hits his father; he’s eighteen and he gets a car. 

He sits on the bed now, too, head in his hands, looking down at the floor. In a way, it was an easier time back then, knowing what to expect. With Jim, he hasn’t a clue. The man’s so changeable; one day he can have someone decapitated for mentioning his bald spot, and the next he can laugh heartily at someone’s comment about the pudge he carries around the middle. Where, Sebastian wonders, on that scale does what he’s done fall? It seems the greatest insult one could give. 

He sits there for what feels like ages, with a knot in his stomach and his hands in his hair and every part of him screaming for him to run, but with nowhere to go. Jim’s given him everything, and so, Jim owns everything. Owns his flat, his car, even his clothes. Before Jim, there was only ever the minor drug dealing, the card cheating and the little fire hazard of a flat he used to call home. It hadn’t occurred to Sebastian before now just how vulnerable he’s made himself, like a tiger in a cage at the zoo. There’s nowhere to run when they come with the tranquilizer gun. 

What pulls Sebastian from his thoughts is the sound of a key turning in his lock, because of course Jim has a spare. As he looks up from the bed he fully expects to be facing his own gun, and that sets him moving. He might’ve left it in parts, but he knows that Jim’s got a working understanding of weaponry, and Sebastian’s never been a fan of poetic justice. Being shot with the gun he got as a gift only months before? No, thanks. So he gets up, with the intention of jumping his boss the moment the man comes in the door, but luckily, he doesn’t. Luckily, because Jim isn’t wielding a gun. He’s holding a cup of tea, and he’s smiling. 

“Now, darling,” he says, stepping into the room, “that wasn’t very nice, was it?” 

He isn’t angry, although Sebastian can’t for the life of him see why he wouldn’t be. Sebastian really, properly hurt him; he ought to be livid. He asked for sex, and he got hurt instead, and… Oh. Sebastian blinks and when he opens his eyes again, Jim’s sitting next to him, and Sebastian sees his boss with new eyes. He actually liked that? Something about the thought has Sebastian deeply ashamed, and he accepts the cup of tea as if to make up for it. Without thinking about it, he takes a careful sip. Strawberry flavoured, two sugars, just the way he likes it. Jim’s noticed, then. 

“You shouldn’t worry about it, really,” Jim goes on, and Sebastian honestly doesn’t, not until he feels Jim’s fingers dance at the back of his neck. “We’ve got plenty of time for you to be nice later.”


End file.
